The Flash desperately searches for his missing wife, Picture News reporter, Iris West. So intent is the Flash on his search, he inadvertently creates a monstrous tidal wave, with the wake from his super-speed. After rescuing all the swimmers he imperiled, the Flash dissipates the wave, before resuming his search. Meanwhile, on Earth-2, the Golden Age Flash is in the midst of a rescue of his own. He is joined by his Justice Society of America teammate, Doctor Fate. The Golden Age Flash has summoned Doctor Fate to assist in the treating of West. It is the Golden Age Flash who has abducted West. Along side his wife, Joan Williams, he is keeping West sequestered in his home.
To keep the Golden Age Flash's Earth-1 counterpart occupied, Doctor Fate casts the illusion of West around another girl. When the Flash, in his guise as police forensics scientist, Barry Allen, sees "West, he immediately races out to retrieve her. The Flash snatches "West" from the crowd. "West" repeatedly tells the Flash that she isn't his wife. Their argument is interrupted when an enormous, disembodied hand reaches out for them, from within the recently opened Putnam Tunnel. The hand slams the Flash into the ground, but the Scarlet Speedster merely vibrates his molecules fast enough to allow him to slip beneath the street.
The Flash circles around to the other end of Putnam Tunnel, to try to ambush the hand. As soon as the Flash enters, a second hand appears behind him. Caught between the two horrific hands, the Flash finds himself being bombarded with an enervating energy. The Flash races around and around the walls of the tunnel, spiraling out from the first hand's grasp. By the time he turns back to continue the conflict, the hands have vanished. Grabbing up "West" again, the Flash races her home. The Flash does everything in his power to convince "West" she is who he says she is, and that they are married.
Suddenly, the hand comes crashing through the wall. Fleeing with "West", the Flash runs headlong into the other hand. The Flash hurls "West" into the air, buries the hand with a tornado of rocks and soil, then catches "West" before she hits the ground, all without breaking his stride. The hands, though, are not so easily deterred, and soon, enough they are closing on the Flash, and "West", again. Doctor Fate fails to cure West of her affliction. The pestilence within her body, should it ever come in contact with the Flash's super-speed aura, would unleash a cataclysm of epic proportions. Doctor Fate removes the illusion of "West" he used to distract the Flash from his search, on Earth-1.
Only then does Doctor Fate realize that casting his spell across the dimensional void between the two Earths also created the ghostly hands. Worse, Doctor Fate cannot dissipate them. The Flash races towards the hands, veering off at the last second as they slam shut upon his after-image. The force of the hands' impact against one another dissipates them. Doctor Fate casts West into the 30th century, on Earth-1, where she hopes the advanced technology of that era can cure her. Using his Cosmic Treadmill, the Flash carries his search for West into the future, little suspecting that if he finds her, it could result in the end of the world.
Notes:
- This issue contains the Hostess Superhero Ad, Shazam in "Minerva Menace"
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